Faint Not

When we feel hurt, mistreated or ignored long enough our heart can begin to harden. The things we once cared about don’t matter anymore. Our once sensitive heart toward others slowly changes into an, “I don’t care” type heart toward people. We become careless with our words and deeds, and often injury others the very same way we were injured. 

I have struggled with this myself, recently. I had collected some hurts from a few people and developed the, “I don’t care” attitude towards them. I was on the verge of acting-out this “I don’t care” attitude when I did a self-check.  Did I want an ugly heart? Of course not, and that convicted me. I told my friend I was worried that all this pain we had walked through was hardening my heart, and I didn’t want to develop the ugliness I had experienced in others, in myself.  I was at a crossroads. I could go in the way of the flesh or the way of the spirit. 

Often when other s hurt us, we lash out, “I’ll show them.” When we act from such an ugly place, truly we are “fainting”.  The Bible says in Galatians 6:9 KJV, “let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” Do we want to reap the rewards of “well doing”? If so, we must catch ourselves before we faint. I believe when we manifest ugliness from a hardened heart we have taken our eyes off the prize. We have forgotten what we were fighting for. As Christians we fight differently than the world. We fight with love, kindness, and forgiveness. When someone wounds us, we are called to forgive them each and every time. 

I heard it once said, “Unforgiveness is like drinking poison and waiting for someone else to die”. Isn’t that the truth? Let’s trust God to deal with those that have hurt us, while we focus on pumping the poison of unforgiveness out of our own veins, lest we faint and forfeit our prize.

This is how the Lord encouraged me. He reminded me that those who REAP, are those who don’t FAINT. And allowing these negative feelings to fester was fainting, because those feelings take root and lead to actions.  Even if those actions aren’t HUGE, they are still issues of the heart and God looks at the heart. 

You see, if we read the verse before, we will see why the enemy wants us acting-out from a hardened heart.  Galatians 6: 7-8 NIV says, “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.”  

All sow and all will reap something. The question is, are we sowing to the spirit or sowing to the flesh? 

Continue sowing the spirit and in due season we will reap!